Anti-Hero || Leo Valdez

21 - Here We Go Go Go Go On an Adventure

It was official: Leo was going to take Via to Camp Half-Blood the following day.

At least that was the plan. Calypso had talked to Leo and they'd agreed to take a break. It had gone over pretty well, and things between the two were friendly, even if a little awkward for everyone.

So Leo got himself packed and they were ready to go — until Festus took off and Via went right through him. They tried three times until Jamie pointed out that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results was insanity. So then Via told Leo to just fly ahead and she'd float alongside him. It only took that plan one trial to find out that ghosts are not as fast as bronze dragons.

So now instead of wondering if they'd ever travel to Camp Half-Blood in the first place, Via and Leo were left with a different dilemma: how to transport someone who doesn't have a body.

The solution came with the very thing that had caused Via's ghost problem: Commodus' Stygian Iron knife. Jo and Leo decided to melt it down and do a bit of experimenting with it. They diluted it with various metals like Celestial Bronze and normal iron to see if they could get it to a point where Via could touch it without going to the Underworld the hard way. They succeeded in adding normal, nonmagical iron to it in order to make a sort of seatbelt to keep Via chained to Festus so she wouldn't float away.

Leo hooked it up to Festus' back and they tested it out. Via floated up onto Festus' back and Leo helped her strap herself in. He took off and flew a lap around the Waystation. Via once again felt like a balloon, but it was more intense this time because she was so high up and they were going pretty fast. It wasn't scary exactly, but she told Leo that if she was going to do this, they needed to take several breaks.

"No problem, Doc," Leo said (the Doc McStuffins nickname had obviously stuck), unstrapping her from his dragon's back. "Just to get to Cinncinati from here will be, like, four hours. I ain't sitting on a dragon for that long if I don't have to. It would kill my back."

Via snorted. "You sound like an old man."

Leo grinned before grabbing a measuring stick off of one of Jo's worktables, using it like a cane before affecting a very hoarse old man's voice. "You know how my back is, Via! I'm gonna get appendicitis!" Via burst into a flurry of giggles, and Leo's grin widened. "I don't know what I'm talking about. What even is appendicitis?"

"Oh, you don't want me to explain it. I'll bore you to death."

"Better than getting mauled by a hellhound or some shit." He replaced the measuring stick and propped his elbows on the table, sticking his bottom lip out at Via like a toddler begging for candy. "Pleeeaase, Via? Tell me all about whatever the Hades appendicitis is?"

Via grinned. "Okay, fine. Come hither, small child, and I shall tell you all the unbelievable horrors of appendicitis."

Nobody really seemed interested in the medical stuff Via was fascinated by, and even if they were polite enough to listen to her ramble about it, she usually stopped or changed the subject when she saw the glazed look of boredom in their eyes.

Leo was different. He listened, genuinely interested, and asked questions when Via accidentally used medical terms he didn't understand. She tried to explain things to her the way he explained mechanics to her when she kept him company while he fixed Festus. He didn't seem like he regretted asking about it; by the end of it he seemed just as interested in it as Via did, despite the fact that it was a deadly disease caused by an organ you don't even need bombing your body with toxic shit.

Weirdly enough, it was deeply gratifying.

While Via explained, Leo finished unstrapping her and they continued talking about it on the way to the kitchen for dinner with the rest of the Waystation's residents.